First in War: Laboring People and the
American Revolution as an Agrarian Reform Movement in Amherst County, Va. and
Sumter County, S.C.

††††††††††† The
"God and country" religion of American nationalism that we learn in
school puts the focus of the American Revolution on the liberation from
Britain. For the working people that actually did the fighting, however, the
enemy was closer to home. Their fight was as much against the capitalists and
landlords in the revolutionary camp as it was against the British imperialists.[1]
George Washington was not first in their hearts. They themselves were first in
the line of fire and the first in their own hearts.

††††††††††† This
essay looks at the revolution from the view of labor, in particular that of
William Jones (1761-1809), who served in the 7th Virginia regiment of the
Continental Army in the late 1770s and then in the South Carolina militia
(1780-1783). Jones did not have a contemporary biographer. But his views are
suggested in the federal pension application, which his daughter filed, based
on his service, and in the pension files of several others who served with him.[2]
These were John Bradford, Obediah Spears and William Vaughn.[3]
Also helpful is a "Memorandum Book" which he began in 1803, as well
as state and county records in Amherst County, Va. and Sumter County, S.C.[4]

††††††††††† Cheap Land. At the beginning of the
revolution in 1776 the Jones family was farming in Amherst County, Va.
Europeans and Africans had been farming in the Amherst area of the Piedmont
since the early 1700s.[5]
From the start there was a battle over land monopolization.[6]
Working people like the Joneses had come to the area seeking affordable land.
They were confronted by capitalists who were seeking to impose a market system
in land.

††††††††††† The
magnates constituted less than one percent of the population, but they often
bought off for themselves the political offices, the military force, the court
system, the sheriffs, and the clergy.[7]They obtained patents on large tracts
from the royal government, surveyed the land and chased off squatters,
including Indians, and subdivided it into homesteads ranging from 50 to 400
acres. The land was sold for as much as £25 per 100 acres, which was as much as
most farmers made in a good year. The magnates also brought in slave and wage
laborers to work the best land, which they kept for themselves.[8]

††††††††††† It
was a rotten system for laboring people. Illustrative of one of the Amherst
landlords against whom the Joneses contended was Dr. William Cabell
(1699-1774), who came to Virginia from Warminster, England in 1723.[9]
He surveyed and patented 26,000 acres (20 miles) of the best valley land along
the county's rivers. He set up a store, warehouse and depot for produce at
Warminster on the Fluvanna (now James) River near the mouth of the Swan River.
He got the Williamsburg government to commission him as a justice of the peace,
deputy sheriff, surveyor and Indian fighter. He helped oversee the collection
of taxes, licensing of public utilities, supervision of charities and
construction and maintenance of public works. Historian Emily Salmon summarized
the 18th-century Piedmont from the view of the tobacco magnates such as Cabell:

As settlement edged toward the Blue Ridge
Mountains, the formation of new counties beyond the fall line extended
tidewater institutions into the west. The piedmont frontier was developed less
by poor farmers in search of opportunity than by the colony's leading families,
such as the Randolphs, Carters, Pages, and Nicholases, who acquired the best
acreage along the rivers. The piedmont became an area of immense tobacco
estates, some as large as thirteen thousand acres. Much of the colony's land
was granted in huge parcels to speculators, such as Robert ("King")
Carter, William Byrd II, and William Beverley, but non-Virginians, such as
Jacob Stover, of Pennsylvania, and Benjamin Borden, of New Jersey, acquired
extensive landholdings in the Valley of Virginia, that fertile region between
the Blue Ridge and the Alleghenies explored in 1716 by Governor Alexander
Spotswood and his Knights of the Golden Horseshoe.[10]

††††††††††† The
Amherst landlords estimated they needed 50 acres for each field hand and at
least twenty slaves before hiring an overseer.[11]
Slaves sold for £30, cost £6 yearly to maintain, and could net £14 in yearly
profit in the 1760s and 1770s.[12]
Thus the smallest economic unit for capitalist agriculture complete with
overseer and slaves was approximately 1,000 acres, considerably larger than the
holdings of nearly all Amherst residents in the eighteenth century.[13]

††††††††††† Squatting
was one of the tactics used by labor to undermine the attempt at land monopoly.
Those such as the Joneses, willing to farm the poorest, least productive ridge
land that rose from 200 to 2,000 feet, paid nothing in purchase money and
avoided the £3 survey and recording fees.[14]
Having no recorded title meant having no taxes, tithes or rents.[15]
It also meant that the main information preserved about them was in the
Revolutionary War pension files, not in the Amherst County Courthouse records.
Living in 16 x 12 foot and 20 x 16 foot log homes, the mountaineers were
self-sufficient and within a decade of settlement were producing cash crops of
corn, wheat and pork that brought them £15 or £20 per year.[16]
Methodist preacher George Whitefield wrote of his admiration for the Piedmont
Scots-Irish, "They raise little or no tobacco, but things that are useful
for common life."[17]

††††††††††† Squatting
was part of the common land tradition of both the English and Gaelic laboring
people and of the American Indians.[18]
Their land belief was based on labor (usufruct),
and rejection of land speculation or profit from buying and selling land.[19]
Deserted fields could be used by anyone who wanted to use them. What one
authority said concerning Indian title applied equally to the Amherst
mountaineers' title, "Indian title was originally one of aboriginal use
and occupancy."[20]
Squatter occupancy was one of the reasons that half of Virginia's white
population in the 1770s had no recorded land.[21]
Even working people who bought or rented, boycotted the magnate-dominated
county courts.[22]

††††††††††† Albert
Tillson in his study of the Virginia frontier described the frequent contention
between the squatters and the magnates during the 1770s in Augusta County,
which bordered Amherst to the west:

Popular resentment of the gentry appeared
more conspicuously in connection with land disputes. Upper valley leaders often
quarreled with squatters who had settled on their land without obtaining title.
In 1772, when preparing to move his family to lands they had purchased in the
southern valley, William Christian discovered two families already living
there. He reported to his mother that one family "after wrangling a while,
agreed to go off." Although the other family refused to leave, Christian
hoped he would "be able in a little time to drive them off."[23]

In at least one part of the frontier,
squatting became so prevalent that land magnate Thomas Walker instructed his
associate William Preston not to disturb such people unless necessary to
facilitate a sale, noting that if squatters were removed from unsold property
"others may settle on the land & make a second & third Ejectment
necessary."[24]

††††††††††† The
landlords attempted to use the courts and local officials against the
squatters. In turn, the constables and other minor officials were defied, sometimes
by armed force. As a result there was frequent turnover among these positions
and it was difficult to keep them filled. Tillson remarked:

The authority of the gentry was also
defied in the functioning of constables and other law enforcement efforts. Land
disputes with prestigious leaders, especially with surveyors and major
speculators, encouraged popular resentment of the elite in many communities.[25]

††††††††††† In
the two decades prior to the Revolution, the Joneses both purchased land and
squatted. Because of the squatting, they were subjected to a trespass and
ejectment suit in 1772.[26]
The first mention of them as purchasers was on July 15, 1760. This was a year
before Amherst was created as a result of the division of Albemarle County.
James Jones, father of the revolutionary, obtained a grant that year of 110
acres of mountain land from the Virginia Land Office for 15 shillings.[27]
The patent for the land stated that it was located "on head branch of
Piney River and a branch of Irish Creek."[28]
In addition to the initial cash payment, Jones had to pay a yearly quit rent of
one shilling on the feast of St. Michael Archangel and to cultivate it within
three years.[29]
Later, on July 20, 1768, James obtained two more grants to mountain land from
the Virginia Land Office. One was for 320 acres on the north fork of the Piney
River for 35 shillings and the requirement to cultivate and pay a quit rent.[30]
The other was for 204 acres "in the great mountains," on the
"branches of the north fork of Piney River to the top of little Mount
Pleasant." The cost was 20 shillings.[31]
These latter grants had been surveyed by William Cabell on Oct. 13, 1767.[32]
On May 5, 1777, ten years after patenting it, as the Revolution heated up,
James Jones deeded away his 634 acres to Jno. Henderson, Jr., of Albemarle
County for £63. The first Amherst census after the Revolution, taken in 1783,
does not list James.[33]

††††††††††† Religion. The struggle between capital
and labor played itself out across the board in the years prior to the
Revolution. Not least among things contested was religion. The Joneses were
part of the Methodist movement that was initially based within the established
church and that gained a following among some of Amherst's working people
beginning in the 1760s.[34]
Methodists adopted plain dress. They rejected capitalism's mindless consumerism
and what they believed were its vices: sexual promiscuity, gambling, horse
racing, alcoholism and "enslavement to the material."[35]
A student of their morality summarized:

Clearly sporting, indolence, laziness,
taking time off, enjoying life, lack of ambition (all the words are loaded with
values of one kind or another) had their origins in other things as well as a
life outside the market economy. In particular, celebration and recreation had
economic functions as well as social. They established connection and
obligation. The effect of having relatively few needs was liberating of time as
well as paid labor. Having relatively few needs that the market could satisfy
meant that commoners could work less. Karl Polanyi might say that thrift spared
commoners the "humiliating enslavement to the material, which all human
culture is designed to mitigate." In other words: commoners had a life as
well as a living.[36]

††††††††††† The
"life" which Methodists offered as an alternative to the slavery of
the market, emphasized ministry to their less fortunate neighbors. For example,
they considered the market enslavement of blacks as theft and dismissed
pro-slavery clergy.[37]
They called each other "brother" and "sister" in accord
with their belief that they were all one family united with a "loving
God" who watched over their lives. They made no distinction between clergy
and laity. Slaves and women preached, exhorted and disciplined. They paid for
and controlled their church.[38]
Methodists were condemned as Armenians for teaching "free grace" and
universal salvation, and as antinomians for believing in the "inner
light," for rejecting the doctrine of obedience to the established order,
and for having "no respect of persons" (Acts 10:34).[39]

††††††††††† Amherst's
Methodists had a low regard for those like Robert Rose (1704-1751), the local
clerical landlord who headed the established church in its early years. Rose
had been appointed minister of St. Anne's Parish when it was established in
1744.[40]
He was a large land and slave owner on the Tye and Piney Rivers. His ministry
in the Methodist view was corrupted by the nature of capitalism into money
grubbing. Richard Morton described these activities:

More than a decade before he became a
minister in Albemarle County, Robert Rose, the surveyor and businessman, had
acquired thousands of acres on the Tye and Rockfish rivers in the present
Nelson County [Amherst in the 1760s], and later acquired other properties. In
addition to his home plantation on Tye River he had several quarters managed by
overseers, and lots in Fredericksburg, Richmond, and Westham. Like most large
planters of his day, Rose had his mill, blacksmith's shop - for which he burned
charcoal - carpenter's shop and a shop for making shoes.[41]

††††††††††† Revolution. The Amherst population at
the beginning of the Revolutionary War in 1775 consisted of 5,296 whites and
2,750 blacks.[42]
Most of these people were workers. The revolution for them centered on agrarian
reform. They wanted cheap and better land. The blacks wanted emancipation. The
revolution was an opportunity to demand land grants and revenue in exchange for
military service, to expropriate land, to renege on debts and to strike against
rent and mortgage payments.[43]

††††††††††† The
value of property confiscated by the revolutionaries in Amherst amounted to
half a million pounds sterling.[44]
Blacks "confiscated" themselves by joining the British forces. In
their desperation to retain power, the British emancipated the blacks who would
join them.[45]
Some of the whites also took the British side and many others remained neutral,
finding the tyrants in London were less a menace than the ones in Amherst and
Williamsburg. There were no British taxes but many Virginia taxes such as those
on land, marriage licenses, liquor, glass windows, billiard tables and a
general poll tax.[46]
Methodists, with their egalitarian notions, were indifferent to revolutionary
appeals that promised no gain for labor.[47]

††††††††††† Virginia's Military Defense. The
initial enlistment of William Jones and of Amherst's other farmers in the
Virginia Continentals came about only after Virginia had been forced to make
agrarian concessions. There had been a militia in the Amherst area since before
the county had been established. At the neighborhood level, the militia mustered
semi-annually. A county muster was held annually.[48]
Working people tended to control the militias and used them for their own
benefit. The officers were chosen by the troops themselves and got no extra
pay.[49]

††††††††††† For
decades the rank-and-file had been negative about efforts to send the companies
outside their neighborhoods to make the western frontier safe for capital
investment.[50]
For example, it had been no concern of labor whether the French or the English
won the French and Indian War (1754-1760). Washington commented about the
conflict having been unnecessary, precipitated by the expansionist lustings of
the royal governor and the Ohio Land Company.[51]
Albert Tillson described the problem of militia recruitment in Amherst's
neighbor, Augusta County:

In 1754 Augusta leaders were unable to
raise even fifty men for an expedition to expel the French from the Ohio
Valley, and William Preston reported in 1757 that he could not keep the men in
his command on duty for more than a week or two at a time.[52]

††††††††††† As
the hostility between the English and North American heated up in 1774 and
early 1775, Virginia's landlords worked to enlist the local militias in the
struggle. The push for the revolution against Britain did not come from the
subsistence farmers. They did not see themselves as being hurt by the
Navigation Acts, Stamp Act (1765) and Townshend Act of 1767 (taxation), Indian
treaties (Hard Labor Treaty of 1768), and Quebec Act (1774).[54]
It was not their concern that the western land investments of those like
Patrick Henry and George Washington were worthless as long as the British set
foreign policy. The British took the Iroquois side against the land speculators
because they did not want to fund another Indian war, for which the speculators
refused to pay taxes.

††††††††††† Farming
people such as the Joneses grew and made what they needed.[55]
They had little participation in the market, little in tithable property and
paid little in taxes, especially to London.[56]
Patriotism meant nothing. The province literally belonged to the magnates and
was not something labor would defend.

††††††††††† The
first scheme attempted by the magnates to enlist the militias against the
British was an enactment in August 1775 by the Virginia Revolutionary Convention.
This legislation purported to establish 16 regional military districts and to
take over the county militias and replace them with "minute
companies" containing 8,000 troops and a regular army with 1,000 troops.[57]
The minute officers were not to be chosen by the troops but by
landlord-controlled district committees.[58]
In order to preserve class distinctions, top officers were to be paid 11 times
more than the rank-and-file.[59]
While promoting compulsory minute service for working people, the landlords
exempted themselves.[60]
Those with three or more slaves or other workers did not have to enlist.Amherst County was put in the Buckingham
Military District, which also included Albemarle, Augusta and Buckingham
Counties.[61]
A barracks was located in Albemarle County.

††††††††††† The
magnates were immediately confronted with farmers all over the province who
refused to join the "compulsory" minute battalions or take oaths of
loyalty to the Williamsburg government. Many boycotted the prescribed
20-day-long training session. Those who did go to the training, mutinied.
Typically, a minute company of rifle in Amherst's military district set fire to
the ferry house where they were stationed and committed "seditious and
mutinous" acts against their appointed leader, Lieutenant Hugh Mercer.[62]
The rank-and-file religion, as reflected by one young soldier, was St. Paul's
(2 Th 3:10) version of the labor
theory of value: "the laborers are worthy of their meat."[63] They did not respect army chaplains who
preached John the Baptist's (Lk 3:14)
program of obedience: "be content with your wages."[64]
For the Virginia Methodists who took the command against killing seriously, it
was more than a matter of wages. A contemporary wrote:

They were bound in conscience not to
fight: and no threatenings could compel them to bear arms or hire a man to take
their places. In consequence of this, some of them were whipped, some were
fined, and some imprisoned; others were sent home, and many were persecuted.[65]

††††††††††† Land Bounty and Pre-Emption Rights.
Because of the militancy, the Virginia convention was forced to abolish the
minute companies in January 1776, six months after their attempted
establishment.[66]
They were replaced by increasing the regular army four times in size. To obtain
enlistees, the army had to be transformed into an agrarian reform program. Each
soldier received a land bounty warrant of one hundred acres, $20 in cash and
substantial wages.[67]
Another concession made by the Virginia Revolutionary Convention and later by
the Virginia Assembly to gain the help of the militias, was to reduce the
prerogatives of the speculators by granting pre-emption rights to squatters.[68]
The courts were no longer able to summarily eject working people who set up
farms without paying tribute to the magnates.

††††††††††† Historian
Woody Holton commented, "The regular army was filled quickly for the army
promised poor farmers a living wage."[69]
The capitalists hated the working-class agrarian reform. Landon Carter,
complained of having "to kiss the asses of the people and very servilely
accommodate to them."[70]
The reform hurt not only monopolists on the frontier but made land prices in
eastern Virginia decline.[71]
To reduce their costs, the magnates turned to the Continental Congress, which
took the regulars into the Continental Army and paid them.[72]
Six Continental regiments took the place of the minute battalions.

††††††††††† Even
within the Continental service, the rank-and-file took the law into their own
hands when necessary to serve their agrarian needs. For example, Samuel Jordan
Cabell, captain of the 6th Virginia Regiment, recorded the desertion of 4
Amherst troops who went home for the harvest in Sept. 1776:

Deep Springs Camp, Sept. 17, 1776.
Deserted last night from my company of riflemen, the following soldiers, viz.,
Josiah Jones . . . carried away with him a hunting shirt trimmed with red, a
pair of leather breeches, several new shirts, and other things which I cannot
recollect at present. David Barnett . . . carried with him a hunting shirt
trimmed with red, a pair of leather breeches, a pair of new shoes, and several
yards of linen, which I had delivered to him about two days before he deserted.
They . . . were raised and enlisted in Amherst, where I expect they will
endeavor to get.[73]

The rate of desertion in the Continental
army was 20%.[74]
General Charles Lee complained, "The spirit of desertion in the back
country troops is alarmingly great."[75]
Along with desertion, mutiny was used to redress needs, with 10 major ones
before the famous Pennsylvania line mutiny of 1781.[76]

††††††††††† At
the same time the regulars were being increased, the neighborhood militias
continued to exist, but the enlargement lessened the attempts to use the
militias against the British.[77]
Nevertheless, when they were called out, the militias engaged in mass
desertions and mutiny if the magnates neglected to pay for their services or
extended their services beyond the contractual period.

††††††††††† Joneses' Continental Service. By August
1777 most of the militia-age males in Amherst County had been sufficiently
accommodated by Revolutionary Convention that they took the oath of allegiance
and enrolled in the militia or Continental Army. Besides William Jones, his
father, James, probably served.[78]
Lenora Sweeney in her study, summarized the revolutionary history of the
Amherst militia:

The Militia of Amherst, from January 1776
to January 1781, numbered about 1,200 troops. Of these, about 350 had entered
Continental service, and about 200 of the remainder had seen actual service as
Militia in the state service. But between January 4 and October 19th, 1781,
probably every able male remaining in the county was employed in one way or
another in the defense of the state. Old Amherst sent her troops North and
South, East and West.[79]

††††††††††† Depending
on the source, William Jones was 14 or 17-years-old at the time he enlisted.[80]
His experience illustrates how working people turned the war into a program for
agrarian reform. Like many of his neighbors, his service started with a term in
the 7th Virginia Continentals.[81]
For enlisting from one to three years, they received a cash bounty of £40, a
warrant for 100 acres of land, a monthly wage of $6 2/3 dollars (£2.10 or 40
shillings), clothes and sustenance.[82]
For young farming people without land, this was a revolution not unlike that
experienced by the blacks, who emancipated themselves as a result of the
disruption. It helped William Jones to marry, have a child and establish a
40-acre farm in the Providence (now Dalzell) section of what became Sumter
County, S.C. before the war ended. A survey of 419 Virginia pension records
indicated that 90% of the Virginia line were, like William Jones, from the
Piedmont and Shenandoah Valley with no land. Their median age was 20.
Twenty-one were 14 or 15-years old.[83]

Although deponent was very young [aged 14
years] at the period when or sometime after the period that William Jones came
[to South Carolina] with other Continental soldiers, [including] names Joshua
Stafford, John Pollard, John Peek and many others whose names he cannot now
recollect without having their names called; that said persons came with
General Greene from Virginia to the aid of South Carolina, that said Jones
married one Ann Freeman, one or two years before the deponent joined the army
in 1780 and came to reside with his family within 1 1/2 miles of where
deponent's father resided in Sumter District; that said Jones was in the
company of Capt. Long and others whose names he does not recollect. After his
term expired in the Continental service, said Jones joined the South Carolina
militia with many others of the Continental soldiers and before the deponent
mustered into the service in Oct. 1780 under Capt. Malone in which company he
found William Jones.[84]

††††††††††† Vaughn
noted that Jones served in a Continental company commanded by "Capt.
Long." The only Virginia staff officers of this name was Capt. Gabriel
Long (1751-1821), who headed the 4th company in the 7th Virginia Regiment
Continental Line under Captain-Lieutenant Philip Slaughter.[85]
Continental companies had 60 troops on paper and about half that number at any
particular time. There were from 6 to 10 companies in a regiment or 400 to 600
troops.[86]
When Col. Daniel Morgan's regiment of riflemen was organized in June 1777,
Long's Company was attached to it.[87]
Morgan's regiment was composed of troops from the army at large but with a
majority from Virginia. The troops were mainly Scotch, Irish, German and Welsh
farming people from the Piedmont and frontier.

††††††††††† As
their name indicated, Morgan's troops used rifles, not the muskets favored by
the English who served in the line regiments. They worked as scouts, flankers
and light infantry. Line troops provided the backbone of the army and were
trained to fire well-directed volleys and use the bayonet as promoted by Baron
Von Steuben in his manual. The rifle troops wore leggings, leather shoes or
moccasins and loose fitting, long-sleeved, inexpensive homespun hunting shirts
that were belted at the waist. Some wore round wool hats with two-inch brims
and cocked on one side. Besides their rifles they carried tomahawks, knapsacks,
blankets, soap, wooden canteens with the regimental number VII painted on the
side and sometimes tents.[88]

††††††††††† Long's
company became detached from Morgan's regiment in May 1778. The locations in
which the 7th Regiment served are summarized in Table I:

The 7th Regiment in 1778 typically sat in
the hills behind White Plains, N.Y., where they could menace British supply
lines and thus block any overland incursions into New England.[90]
Each autumn many of the Virginia troops marched home for the harvest and
returned from the "furlough" in the spring.[91]

††††††††††† The Southern War and Cheap Land. From
1776 to 1780 the revolution was fought mainly in the North. As indicated in
Table I, toward the end of Joneses' Continental service in 1779, his regiment
went to South Carolina. Even before the Declaration of Independence, 500
revolutionaries representing the South Carolina Provincial Congress, had dug
themselves in behind a sand and palmetto log fort on Sullivan's Island in the
Charleston harbor. On June 28, 1776 they defeated a British fleet and 2000
troops, which were attempting to land and establish a military base.[92]
As a result, Charles Cornwallis took the war North. South Carolina was peaceful
for the next three years.

††††††††††† The
British strategy and the South's isolation changed after the English were
defeated at Saratoga on Oct. 7-17, 1777. British General William Howe was
replaced by Henry Clinton, who retreated from Philadelphia to New York. He was
cautious. He did not make a determined effort to drive Washington's troops,
which included the 7th Virginia regiment, away from the New York area. Instead
he sought to wear down revolutionary resistance by ruining the shipping of the
Americans, ravaging their shores, bribing their leaders, enlisting the services
of the loyalists, and, most importantly for South Carolina and the Virginia
Continentals, by occupying strategic points along the coast.[93]

††††††††††† When
the British moved to occupy Charleston in 1779, the revolutionary forces were
not well prepared. In 1775 the South Carolina Provincial Congress had
authorized 10 Continental regiments. But with the British quickly abandoning
their attempt to conquer the province, the regiments had never been fully
staffed. They soon became skeletons because of low funding, idleness, disease
and desertion.[94]
There was still the militia system, which included several thousand up-country
farmers. But the farmers were no more concerned with the plight of the
low-country rice landlords than were the low-country blacks who ran off to the
British.[95]
Few up-country whites left their fields in the spring of 1779 when Governor
John Rutledge (1730-1800), supposedly given dictatorial powers by the
provincial congress, called for their help.[96]
Those that did respond did so on their own terms.

††††††††††† An
example of the limited allegiance given by the South Carolina farmers can be
seen in the pension file of William Joneses' comrade, Joseph Spears.[97]
In February 1779 the provincial congress passed a law giving land bounties to
militia recruits and imposing stiff penalties for those who did not report.[98]
Later that month Spears was drafted for 3 months militia service under Capt.
Joseph Hill, Col. Matthew Singleton and General Andrew Williamson. His unit
marched to Georgia, where they skirmished with the Tories at Brian Creek on
Apr. 1, 1779.[99]
When their 3 months term of service expired, Col. Singleton went to General
Williamson to request a discharge for his militia. But instead of a discharge,
Williamson had Singleton arrested and his "sword taken." Spears
stated that General Williamson was "odious" to the soldiers and that
the regiment was "irate" and "marched off without a discharge,
as our term had expired."[100]

††††††††††† As
its main defense, Charleston was left with its local militia, which was too
weak to fight from anywhere but within the city's forts. This meant the British
ships were able to bombard and level the town. The landlords feared losing
their businesses and mansions. As a result on May 11, 1779 they offered to
compromise. If the English Army would withdraw, South Carolina would remain
neutral during the rest of the war and give its allegiance afterwards to the
winning side. British General Augustine Prevost, who was a high-living New York
land speculator before the war, rejected the offer.[101]
He did not want neutrality. Historians have criticized the landlords for having
put "property before patriotism."[102]
But from the beginning, patriotism was about property, including taxation,
western land and tariffs. For working people too, disembodied notions of
"freedom," "human rights," and "justice" meant
little. Agrarian reform was their concern.

††††††††††† Unable
to make a compromise, the Provincial Congress appealed to George Washington,
who ordered the Virginia and North Carolina Continental regiments to march as
rapidly as possible to South Carolina.[103]
Most of these troops, including the 7th Virginia regiment, got to Charleston by
December 1779. Despite the reinforcements, which numbered 5,500, Charleston
fell on May 12, 1780, after a siege that started on Mar. 12, 1780.[104]
Resistance to British arms in South Carolina then vanished for several months.
Detachments of cavalry and Tory regiments sent out by Henry Clinton overran the
state. British garrisons occupied a chain of posts running from Cheraw to
Ninety-Six, and also Georgetown. South Carolina loyalists came forth by the
hundreds to take oaths of allegiance to the crown, and many took up arms.

††††††††††† The
surrendered Continental troops considered their enlistment contracts as
terminated. If Jones joined the army for a three-year tour in 1777, like many
others from the Piedmont, then his enlistment would have expired in a short
period even without the surrender. Some of the troops returned to Virginia;
others, including Jones and his Virginia comrades, John Pollard, Joshua
Stafford and John Peek, took up farming in South Carolina. The presence of the
British forces was not an inhibitor. It protected them against having to serve
the unexpired time remaining on their Virginia enlistments. One account stated
that in June 1780, "Men of military age throughout the state, thinking
that the war was over, came into the various posts and took the oath of
allegiance to the king."[105]

††††††††††† Those
who stayed in South Carolina to avoid further Virginia service had good reason.
The Virginia magnates reduced their taxes and attempted to make labor fight
without compensation. The surrendered Virginia line had been the province's
only effective military unit. To replace it, the assembly established a cavalry
regiment and authorized that its Continental quota was to be filled by militia
drafts of 20,000 of the state's 40,000 available farmers.[106]
At the same time the assembly emitted more paper money, which had
ever-decreasing value. On May 20, 1780 16 of the 60 Virginia counties had not
paid taxes due in the fall of 1779, while 9 had returned no assessments, but
had paid in part and 8 had returned no assessments and had paid nothing. As a
result, by early 1781 Virginia's troops in the Southern department had not
received wages for two years.[107]
Staying in South Carolina was only one form of resistance. Those in Virginia
resisted by refusing to be drafted, as described by H. J. Eckenrode:

The draughts were especially resented and
met with frequent resistance. In Augusta and Rockingham the people gathered for
the drawings and seized the lists and destroyed them.[108]

Those that went into the service mutinied
as on May 9, 1791 at Rockbridge. When Richmond was under attack by Cornwallis,
they refused to go to its aid.[109]

††††††††††† There
was both a push and a pull to stay in South Carolina. The pull was the agrarian
revolution then taking place. Working people in large numbers in the 1780s were
moving into the abundant and sparsely settled wilderness of middle and upper
country. Between 1781 and 1790 Camden district, where Jones and his comrades put
down roots, grew from 300 to 30,000 whites.[110]
Some purchased 40 acre plots at £2 per acre, but in the early years most set up
farming without benefit of survey, registration, grant, capitalists, fees or
patent. Initially, it was not possible to record titles even for the magnates.
The courthouse for the Camden district was burnt down in 1781. This happened
when the British set fire to their military stores as they evacuated; it spread
to the houses, courthouse and jail.[111]
Then between 1783 and 1800, Providence Springs (now Dalzell), where Jones
settled, was made part of Claremont County by the state assembly. But not until
1785 was a log courthouse built at Stateburg, the county seat. The records
there including wills and mesne conveyances were destroyed by fire in 1801.[112]

††††††††††† As
in Virginia, squatting in South Carolina had a lengthy history. Calling
themselves "regulators," landlords had campaigned for several decades
prior to the Revolution against what they called "vagrants, squatters and
criminals."[113]
During the Revolution it was the squatters who became the
"regulators." Both loyalist and revolutionary landlords were
subjected to lynching, arson, "taxation" and impressment of goods.
Claims to land monopolies were not enforceable.[114]
By the time of the British surrender at Yorktown, Va. on Oct. 19, 1781, the
imperial enemy had for the most part been eradicated from the South. But as
indicated by Joneses' pay receipts, the warfare continued against the local
loyalist landlords who had been run off. Even after the Treaty of Paris, which
was signed on Apr. 19, 1783, loyalist magnates who returned faced trouble. For
example, in April 1784 the militia gave a dozen loyalists who came back to the
upcountry 20 days to get out. At the end of the grace period, 8 were killed and
the remaining were sent back to warn the others.[115]

††††††††††† A
similar incident involving William Jones was remembered by his comrade, William
Vaughn:

William Jones continued to serve in the
war with the exception of a few days leave of absence occasionally until the
hostilities ceased in June 1782 after which said Jones was appointed to take
the lead of scouting parties against robbers and thieves and Tories and on one
occasion Jones was with about 20 others. They surprised a large group of the
enemy, killing two and captured 10 whom they delivered to Col. [James] Postell.
Jones and the deponent and the other soldiers were not on a regular basis on
duty to the cessation of the hostilities, yet they held themselves in readiness
to join the service again whenever called for but were not again called into
service.[116]

††††††††††† In
the decade after the war the revolutionary landlords worked to secure large
tracts. They used "purposely vague and inaccurate plats" which
overlooked the squatters already there or listed them as "persons
unknown."[117]
Nevertheless, during their lifetimes, the Joneses and many other working people
did not record a title to or pay for their farms.[118]
Some have expressed surprise that squatters were never or taken to court:

The very absence of more widespread
protest is surprising. That the situation did not provoke "the alarms of
the people" suggests that many large-scale owners worked out acceptable
arrangements with prior settlers.[119]

††††††††††† However,
the squatters did not find their unchallenged agrarian reform surprising. Jones
and his militia comrades were the military power, not the magnates. An example
was the landlord general and politician, Thomas Sumter. Initially Sumter
patented a 14,000-acre tract that covered much of present-day Sumter and
Stateburg.[120]
By 1794 he had 150,000 acres.[121]
Like many other magnates he went bankrupt and ended up in debtors' prison
during a period when the working people were prospering from their agrarian
reform. The problem was that the squatters were organized and armed.
"Acceptable arrangements" could not be worked out, although the
landlord-controlled state assembly enacted measures to encourage the squatters
to obtain "legal title." For example, the Land Act of 1784 fixed the
price of vacant land at $10 per 100 acres.[122]
In 1790 the assembly fixed a "nominal" fee for vacant land.[123]
But many squatters were not interested. The law of occupancy and usufruct, not that of the assembly,
prevailed.

††††††††††† Besides
cheap land, another of the attractions of the South Carolina revolution for
young William Jones was his new neighbor, 17-year-old Ann Beth Freeman
(1764-1847) and the Methodist society to which both belonged. William and Ann
married on Jan. 24, 1781.[124]
Ann's family had recently taken up land at Providence Springs and were members
of the Methodist meeting there, which became part of the Santee Circuit that
was established in 1786.[125]
Ann's father, James F. Freeman, died about the time she married. William and
Ann helped the widow, who was also named Ann, and Ann's two brothers (Eli and
Joseph) to run the Freeman farm.

††††††††††† The
South Carolina middle country where the Joneses settled was flatter than the
Virginia Piedmont. They had a stream on one side and on another the Methodist
meeting grounds.[126]
Over the years a secession of meeting houses were built on the Methodist
grounds, which also served as a cemetery and parade ground on militia training
days. During the summers the Methodists and neighboring denominations, both
black and white, held an annual weeklong campout there, where they prayed, sang,
educated, fished, courted, politicked, did business and socialized.[127]
In 1788 the Joneses and their neighbors met Francis Asbury and heard him preach
when he visited Rembert, which was a neighboring Methodist chapel about 10
miles distant.[128]

††††††††††† At
Providence Ann and William had 9 children, the first of which, James F. Jones,
was born on Oct. 17, 1782, before the formal end of the Revolution.[129]
They raised subsistence crops of wheat, corn, hogs, sweet potatoes and
vegetables. A contemporary described the self-sufficiency of the people:

In the middle, and especially in the
upper country, the people are obliged to manufacture their own cotton and
woolen clothes, and most of their husbandry tools; but in the lower country the
inhabitants for these articles depend almost entirely on the merchants. Late
accounts inform us, that the inhabitants manufacture entirely in the family way
as much as they have occasion for.[130]

††††††††††† Before
cotton took off in the 1790s, tobacco was grown by the Virginia veterans who
knew the process. During the war, farmers sold their surplus to the military at
Charleston and Camden at good prices.[131]
This allowed them to pay for necessities, such as salt, nails, medicine, gun
power and schooling for their children.[132]
There were no public schools and instruction was sometimes provided by
preachers supplementing their income. Because of the cost, much of the
schooling was informal, home-based and practical, as indicated by William
Joneses' "Memorandum Book." It consisted of reading, writing and
arithmetic, along with "practical surveying," cloth and soap making,
brewing, and baking.[133]

††††††††††† Farm
housing for those like the Joneses was plain and adequate, as one contemporary
put it:

The houses of the poorest sort of people,
are made of logs. . . their interstices filled up with moss, straw, and clay;
and are only of one or two rooms; and the manners of their tenants are equally
plain. But, it is here, that health, and independence dwell. And a crop of a
hogshead of tobacco, or a bag or two of cotton, forms an income, which pays the
taxes and expenses of the farm; and makes a family happy and contented.[134]

Years later a black federal soldier
camped out toward the end of the Civil War on the night of Apr. 15-16, 1865 at
the Methodist grounds, which was 400 yards from the Joneses' farm. He described
the area as "hilly and rolling country sparsely settled with poor
whites."[135]

††††††††††† South Carolina Militia. British control
in South Carolina and the setback for the revolution in May 1780 turned out to
be only temporary. Had the farmers been left alone, they would have remained
neutral.[136]
But the brutality of the imperial forces against the civilian population made
it impossible to be neutral.[137]
The people had to join the militia to defend their produce and livestock from
confiscation, their homes from arson and their families from murder by the
British and their local supporters. They also got indents for land and wages
from the South Carolina Provincial Congress for their service.[138]
The benefits received by William Jones are summarized in Table II.[139]

Table II
William Joneses' Compensation for South Carolina Militia Service.

††††††††††† By
October 1780, the upcountry laboring people were easily recruited to militia
units under Francis Marion (1732-1795), Thomas Sumter (1734-1832) and Andrew
Pickens. Historian Edward McCrady summarized how these people came over to the
revolutionary side:

The people of the section in which most
of these battles had taken place, and in which it now was most ruthlessly
waged, had been opposed to the Revolution. But the victorious British army in
the year 1780 had converted to the case of America thousands who would not
follow the leaders in the Revolution. The people who stood listless and
indifferent to the appeals of Tennent in 1775, had left their fair fields in
the Waxhaws on the Catawba and on the Broad and were now following Sumter.
Those who had resented Drayton's proclamation, were now coming out under Pickens.[145]

††††††††††† William
Jones and about 20 of his neighbors around Providence including John Bradford,
John Bradford, Jr., William Broadway, John Peek, John Pollard, Abraham
Richards, Obediah Spears and Joshua Stafford, joined a militia company that
sometimes served as part of Marion's regiment.[146]
The farmers in this regiment won repeated victories. One authority has counted
137 battles and engagements in South Carolina, more than in any other of the
original states.[147]
Of these, 103 were fought without the help of the Continentals. The largest
battles, including a few in North Carolina and with Continental support, are
summarized in Table III.

††††††††††† While
they could not successfully attack the major British posts or engage large
imperial forces in open battle, the militias were good at harassing guerrilla
warfare, interrupting communications, intercepting British supplies, and
smashing Tory detachments.[149]
Help also came from the north in the form of several Continental regiments and
of the North Carolina and Virginia militias, which periodically moved
southward.[150]

††††††††††† The
South Carolina revolutionary success was in spite of getting little economic
support from the Continental Congress. As the war progressed, the funding for
the Continentals got steadily worse and their size got smaller. It was because
the Continental forces were so poorly supported that the militias operated in
larger units and on a more important scale and had a greater role in South
Carolina than in the North. The rank-and-file in the Pennsylvania line
protested in 1780 that their main enemy was the system that promoted the war
but wanted to pay nothing for it. Instead of a 10% tax on property, as they
demanded, the Continental Congress and state legislatures issued worthless
paper money and borrowed. By December 1780 Congress owed $400,000,000 dollars.[151]

††††††††††† Typically,
after his appointment in Oct. 1780 to lead the Southern Department, Nathaniel Greene
on his way South went through Philadelphia, where he asked the Continental
Congress to fund a "flying camp" of 800 light horse and 1000
infantry.[152]
The Congress did not respond. Going through Richmond, Va., Governor Thomas
Jefferson was no more helpful. Virginia at that time had only 1,500 of its
3,500 troop quota for Continental service.[153]
The Continental troops that Virginia did have in South Carolina starting in the
summer of 1780, as already noted, were half-starved, nearly naked and lived in
make-shift huts because there were no tents.[154]
They went often without horses, wagons and firearms.[155]
During the winter of 1780-1781 many deserted and even the officers, including
Major General John Peter Muhlenberg (1746-1807) and George Weedon, went on
"furloughs" back to Virginia because they were not paid.[156]
The chronic mutiny against this included Greene's personal servant who sought
to turn him over to the British.[157]

††††††††††† In
the instances where the Americans suffered defeats, the lack of economic
support was a factor. The main example of this was the battle on Aug. 16, 1780
at Camden, which was only 15 miles from where the Joneses settled. General
Horatio Gates (1728-1806), who preceded Greene as head of the Southern Dept.,
had just been appointed on July 25, 1780. The battle began with the Virginia
militia going forward in the hope of attacking the British right wing before it
was effectively formed. But the Virginians faltered in their advance. The
British regulars charged in solid formation, and the Virginians fled, firing
only a few shots. Panic-stricken, most of the North Carolina militia also ran
without firing. Only the Continentals and a few North Carolinians put up a
fight, but they eventually had to retreat.[158]
Those who fled included the 10th Division of Amherst County's militia, in which
were William Joneses' old neighbors. As a result of their flight, the 10th
Division was penalized by having their term of service extended 8 months
without pay. In November 1780 they filed a petition with the Virginia state legislature
protesting the extension. They acknowledged "their bad behavior" but
explained, "They were untrained, half-fed, with inexperienced officers,
and overcome with heat and fatigue."[159]

††††††††††† Unlike
the Continentals and the out-of-state militias, the South Carolina militias
supplied themselves from their own farming and were used to going barefoot.
They also looked out for themselves by capturing ammunition and goods from the
enemy and confiscating or impressing the horses and produce of the lowland
magnates.[160]
General Nathaniel Greene, criticized them for this:

You cannot treat the inhabitants with too
much delicacy, nor should the least encouragement be given to the soldiers,
either to invade the property of the people, or offer any personal insults.
This conduct it is which has made the British so very odious.[161]

Their biggest prize was the capture, led
by Capt. Joseph Eggleston, of an enemy supply train in July 1781 on the way
from Charleston to Orangeburg. Another was at the Battle of Eutaw Springs
(Orangeburg) on Sept. 8, 1781. The troops pillaged the captured British camp,
rather than continue fighting for a total victory.

††††††††††† Marion's
corps numbered from 20 to 200, depending on the season, as the troops wandered
into camp in small groups, spent a few weeks campaigning and then went back
home. They wore no uniforms and could march 10 to 20 miles per day and up to 40
miles in 24 hours, if the area was not mountainous or they were not encumbered
with artillery, baggage, cattle, muddy roads or wilderness.[162]

††††††††††† Even
before Greene and his Continentals arrived in the South, the militias at King's
Mountain on Oct. 7, 1780 had reversed the loss at Camden. Mounted farmers from
South Carolina and the hills of Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia had
trailed Major Patrick Ferguson with his force of 1,000 Loyalists and 100
Regulars to King's Mountain. In a savage battle Ferguson was slain and all but
400 of the enemy were killed, wounded or captured. More victories rapidly
followed.

††††††††††† Soon
after he arrived at Charlotte, N.C. on Dec. 2, 1780, General Greene determined
that the revolutionaries could not remain there.[163]
He sent Brigadier General Daniel Morgan with the best troops to annoy General
Charles Cornwallisís' left flank. Along with the mounted militia troops led by
Thomas Sumter and Francis Marion, Morgan had 320 Maryland and Delaware
Continentals, 200 Virginia riflemen and 100 dragoons under William Washington.
Despite the odds being against them, they beat the British on Jan. 17, 1781 at
Cowpens, S.C. along the Catawba River.[164]

††††††††††† A
week after the victory at Cowpens, William and Ann were married at Providence
on Jan. 24, 1781. Six weeks later on Mar. 15, 1781, Joneses' militia unit was
at Guilford Courthouse where it had a leading part in the battle. Technically,
the British won the victory, since they compelled Greene to seek safety in
flight and held the field. But almost half of the imperial Guards were killed
or wounded, and the total of the enemy injured or slain reached 532, about 28
percent of the army. Greene's losses, except for some vanished militia, most of
which could be expected to return to service, were much smaller, 261 dead or
wounded. It was impossible for the enemy to resume the offensive. As it was
said, another such "victory" would mean the end of their army.[165]

††††††††††† In
the months after Guilford Courthouse the Americans kept up the pressure. At
Eutaw Springs in Sept. 1781, which was the bloodiest battle of the Southern
campaign, the militia began the battle by capturing 100 British troops who had
been sent out without arms to gather sweet potatoes. Joneses' neighbor, John
Pollard, who was formerly a Virginian, was wounded at Eutaw Springs, as his son
recounted in 1854:

[My] father was a revolutionary soldier
and at the Battle of Eutaw Springs where he was wounded, he was with William
Jones. William Jones stood side-by-side with him, as he (the deponent) has
often heard his father and the said William Jones in frequent conversation
about the battle as well as about the Battle of Guilford Courthouse in N.C.[166]

††††††††††† The
English army could have kept Charleston indefinitely, but on December 14, 1782
a British fleet carried them away. About 4,000 loyalists who preferred exile
also went, along with 5,000 Blacks.[167]
British General Cornwallis, following a familiar pattern among capitalist
military heroes, devoted the rest of his life to plundering other peoples for
the glory of the Empire as viceroy of Ireland and then governor-general India.
He seldom varied his old methods. He was praised for personal acts of kindness
and never hesitated to send large numbers of rebels to their doom with a blend
of ferocity and righteousness.[168]

††††††††††† Conclusion. The services of George
Washington, Nathaniel Greene and the other generals were appreciated by the
magnates and the legislatures of the various states gave them presents. The
rank-and-file, however, believed that these officers received too much acclaim
and rewards, and that the working people in the militia, the regular army and
the partisans were valued too slightly. John Alden remarks that a continuing
debate sprang up over the question:

Along the same lines and subject to
debate was the legend that the capitalists such as Robert Morris "financed
the Revolution." Many thought it was the reverse: the revolution financed
the magnates. The working people in their crop production and on the
battlefield bought the victory.[170]

††††††††††† Whatever
the merits of these arguments, the real victory for the rank-and-file was in
defeating the nationalism that was voiced by capital to conceal greed. Capital
loved to talk about liberty, but not about liberty for whom and for what. Jones
and his comrades turned the dispute between the American and English magnates
into an agrarian reform. In a similar manner the working people in the Civil
War forced the landlords to enact the Homestead and Morrill Act along with the
13th and 14th Amendments.[171]
In World War II they got the G.I. Bill of 1944, which got them low interest
home loans and free higher education.[172]
As a result of Viet Nam, they got the Volunteer Army. The capitalist religion
of patriotism that equated itself and its military with the divine order was
blasphemous to the 18th-century Joneses and the other working people and has
been to their descendants for 200 years.

ENDNOTES

[1]Charles Neimeyer in America Goes to War: A Social History of the Continental Army (New
York: New York University Press, 1996), p. 7, criticizes the
"mythified" view of the Continental army that ignores its working
class composition, which made it "more revolutionary than its creators
intended."

[2]A pension application was filed by his
then indigent 54-year-old daughter, Elizabeth J. "Betsie" Jones in
1854, long after his death. In it is a narrative of Joneses' service as
recollected from the stories she had been told. In it are also several
affidavits describing his service by his comrades. See "Revolutionary War
Pension Application concerning William Jones," No. R. 7934 in Revolutionary War Pension and
Bounty-Land-Warrant Application Files, 1800-1900 [hereafter Revolutionary Files, 1800-1900],
Records of the Veterans Administration, Group 15, National Archives (Washington,
D.C.) Microfilm Publication M-804, Roll No. 1448, pp. 389-448. There are 80,000
such personal narratives at the National Archives as a result of the Pension
Acts of 1818 and 1832.

[4]Thirteen pages from William Joneses'
"Memorandum Book" were made part of the federal pension application
filed by his daughter. See "Revolutionary War Pension Application
concerning William Jones," No. R. 7934, pp. 390-398. The records of the
South Carolina land grants and monetary payments made to Jones are in State
Comptroller General's Office, book H, p. 498 (1785); book J, pp. 60, 424
(1785); book N, pp. 31, 505 (1782-1785); book T, pp. 58, 60, 424-425 (1785);
book V, p. 118 (1785); book Y, pp. 290, 402 (1785). Copies of these records
were included in Joneses' federal pension application, ibid., pp. 424-441.

[5]Amherst County and Amherst parish, along
with Buckingham County were established in 1761 after splitting off from
Albemarle County and St. Anne's parish. In turn, Albemarle had been established
in 1744 after splitting with Goochland County. Goochland had been created in
1728 from a division of Henrico County, which was established in 1634. In 1808
the North part of Amherst County became Nelson County. See Morgan P. Robinson, Virginia Counties: Those Resulting from
Legislation (Richmond: D. Bolton, 1916).

[6]In the 17th century Amherst was inhabited
by the Sioux-speaking Saponi, who were part of the Monocan Confederation. Their
main cash crop was pelts. They traded with European merchants. By 1700 those
who had not moved southwest to North Carolina, were concentrating on
subsistence farming and integrating with the European and African immigrants.
See Peter Wallenstein, "Indian Foremothers: Race, Sex and Freedom in Early
Virginia," in Catherine Clinton (ed.), The Devil's Lane: Sex and Race in
the Early South (New York: 1997), pp. 62-68; John Moore, Albemarle: Jefferson's
County: 1727-1976 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1976), p. 6.

[7]Woody Holton, Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves and the Making of the
American Revolution (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press,
1999), pp. 5, 61.

[8]Warren Billings, et al., Colonial Virginia: A History (White
Plains, N.Y.: KTO Press, 1986), p. 210; Holton, Forced Founders, pp. 3, 10, 37, 175-176. Attorney-patriot Patrick
Henry, who was involved in 5 land ventures involving Indians between 1767 and
1773, was typical. In one of his ventures, he and his partners in the Fort Stanwix
cession of 1768 bought the traditional land of the Cherokees. The land was
actually deeded to Henry by the Iroquois in New York, who named themselves as
"guardians" of the Cherokees. The land had never been used by the
Iroquois and they had no claim to it. Their only relation to the Cherokees was
that they enslaved them.

[10]Emily Salmon, The Hornbook of Virginia History: A Ready Reference Guide to the Old
Dominion's People, Places and Past (Richmond: The Library of Virginia,
1994), p. 25.

[11]Other Virginia capitalists with holdings
in the Piedmont included Nicholas Davis, who in 1771 got 31,000 acres in
Amherst and Bedford Counties, and John Harmer and Walter King who had the
Nassau Tract on Rucker's Run. Thomas Walker, who owned the Loyal Land Company,
was based in neighboring Albemarle County. The hero of the nationalist
religion, George Washington and his 38 partners in the Mississippi Company had
2.5 million acres. See Frederick Kegley, Kegley's Virginia Frontier: The
Beginnings of the Southwest, The Roanoke of Colonial Days, 1740-1783 (Roanoke:
Southwest Virginia Historical Society, 1938), p. 113; Holton, Forced Founders,
pp. 9, 11, 13, 32; Archibald Henderson, "Dr. Thomas Walker and the Loyal
Land Co. of Virginia," Antiquarian Society, Proceedings, new ser. 41
(1931), 77-178.

[18]J. M. Neeson, Commoners:
Common Right, Enclosure and Social Change in England, 1700-1820
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 178-181; Thomas E. Scrutton
in Commons and Common Fields or, The
History and Policy of the Laws Relating to Commons and Enclosures in England
(New York: Burt Franklin, [1887], 1970), pp. 18-23, discusses the history of
the thousand-year-old custom among the English laboring people in protecting
the institution of common land from landlord aggression. British general Henry
Clinton complained that the Irish, who made up half the Continental army, were
"our most serious antagonists." The revolution against Britain for
them was merely a continuation of their centuries-long agrarian struggle, which
they had waged back home. Charles Neimeyer in America Goes to War, p. 40, quotes Clinton:

The emigrants from Ireland had fled from the
real or fancied oppression of their landlords: thro' dread of prosecution for
the riots [of the White-boys in the 1760s and 1770s], which their Idea of that
oppression had occasioned, they had transported themselves into a country where
they could live without apprehension.

[19]Helen Rountree, Pocahontas's People: The Powhatan Indians of Virginia through Four
Centuries (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990), p. 6.

[20]Kirke Kickingbird and Karen Ducheneaux, One Hundred Million Acres (New York:
Macmillan, 1973), p. 1; Harold Fey and D'Arcy McNickle in Indians and Other Americans: Two Ways of Life Meet (rev. ed., New
York: Harper and Row, 1970), p. 27, write that each nation knew their
territorial bounds but nothing required that land be divided up and parceled
out under a system of land titles. Tribal leaders and the people themselves
negotiated rights of occupation and use.

[29]Jamesís' brother, Ambrose Jones on Oct.
28, 1765, purchased from Robert Rose a plot of land that adjoined Jamesís'
land. This was said to be on the north side of the Tye River. Deed Book B, Amherst County Courthouse,
p. 93, which is abstracted in Davis (ed.), Amherst
County Virginia Courthouse Miniatures: Deed Book B, p. 12.

[33]But Ambrose Jones, brother of James, had
a household with 8 whites and no blacks. Three years later, Ambrose Jones did
not appear in the 1785 census. See "List for Amherst Co., Va.," Heads of Families at the First Census
(Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1986), p. 47.

[35]William Cabell was a model of the
ostentatious monopolist in Amherst. Richard Morton in Colonial Virginia, p. 556, described the horse-racing aspect of it:

As vestryman and churchwarden he conformed to
the Established Church and contributed generously to its support. Like most
Virginians of his day he kept a good stable and delighted in racing, as the
following item from his diary shows: "Sept. 7th 1767 made a race with Mr.
Campbell, with pleasure, against his Seaton mare, for 40 bushels of hempseed, a
barbecue, and 20 gallons of punch. To be run in April next, at my race
course."

[36]Neeson, Commoners, p. 178. Historian Alfred Young in The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory and the American Revolution
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1999), pp. 28, 68, is negative toward the revolutionary
Methodist, George Hewes (1742-1840). Hewes, among other things, did not marry
with a view toward upward mobility and at age 40 had little to show for it. But
this was not negative in Heweses' view; it simply was operating from a higher
morality common among working people. Heweses' treasure, as in Proverbs 31:10, was his
wife and children.

[37]Cynthia Lyerly, Methodism and the Southern Mind, 1770-1810 (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1998), p. 129, remarked that the "keystone of Southern Methodist
antislavery efforts was the Golden Rule," as set forth in Mt. 7:12 and Lk.
6:31. John Wesley in The Works of the Rev. John Wesley (London: Methodist Book
Room, 1872), Sermon 30, discourse 10 ("Upon our Lord's sermon on the
mount"), denounced slave owners because they robbed slaves "of all
their labor" in order to live in luxury. This condemnation, as Lyerly,
ibid., p. 131, put it, "Fit squarely within Methodist opposition to conspicuous
consumption and wealth." Methodist clerical emancipationist Francis Asbury
(1745-1816) preached the story of Moses, the flight from Egyptian slavery and
jubilee (Lev. 25). The minutes of the mixed-race, Baltimore conference of
Methodists declared in 1780 in "Question 17," as quoted in Peter
Linebaugh, The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners and the Hidden
History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (Boston: Beacon Press, 2000), p. 297:

Slavery is contrary to the laws of God, humanity
and nature and hurtful to society; contrary to the dictates of conscience and
pure religion and doing that which we would not others should do to us or ours.

Rank-and-file revolutionary sentiment in the
army during the Revolution was strong for abolishing slavery. The enlistment of
blacks was seen as reducing the burden on the whites. See Theodore Thayer, Nathaniel Greene: Strategist of the American
Revolution (New York: Twayne Publishing Co., 1960), p. 391.

[38]Stephanie McCurry, Masters of Small Worlds: Yeomen Households, Gender Relations, and the
Political Culture of the Antebellum South Carolina Low Country (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 139, 142.

[43]Daniel Friedenberg, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Land: The Plunder of Early America
(Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1992), p. 177; Holton, Forced Founders, pp. 45, 61, 110, 115-119, 121, 131, 180. In 1785,
Walter King Cole, whose Nassau tract was expropriated during the war, is
illustrative of those who petitioned the General Assembly for "payment of
balance due [him] as compensation for lands and other property confiscated by
the State in 1779 as belonging to a British subject." See Walter King
Cole, "Amherst County Legislative Petition Concerning Nassau Tract,"
No. A 856 (1785).

[44]Leonora Sweeney, Amherst County, Virginia in the Revolution including extracts from the
"Lost Order Book," 1773-1782 (Lynchburg, Va.: William Sweeney,
1951), p. 69, reproduces the Amherst "claims for property impressed or
taken for public service." See also McLeroy, More Passages, p. 56; Bailey Davis, Amherst County, Virginia, Courthouse Miniatures: Impressed Property
Claims in Amherst County during the Revolution, also Some Interesting Excerpts
from an Early Order Book of Amherst County (Amherst, Va.: B.F. Davis,
1963).

[45]Holton, Forced Founders, pp. 156-157, 160-161, has an account of Virginia's
Ethiopian Regiment. Lenora Sweeney in Amherst
County, Virginia in the Revolution, p. 72, describes Jude, a black Amherst
woman, who burned down the home of her owner in 1774. The Cherokees and
Shawnees joined the British because of promises that they would regain their
farming and hunting land. See McLeroy, More
Passages, p. 50.

[46]McLeroy, More Passages, p. 54; Sweeney, Amherst
County, Virginia in the Revolution, p. 80. Among those who took a dim view
of the revolution was Thomas Moffitt, an Amherst tavern keeper. He was
prosecuted, as McLeroy in More Passages,
p. 53, recorded it, "for demeaning himself as an enemy to this
Commonwealth, for endeavoring to stir up the people to resist the government
and excite tumult and disorder."

[57]Holton, Forced Founders, p. 167. The most anti-working class constitution
of the period was the Virginia Constitution of 1776. It made appointive all
local offices down to the justice of the peace level. See Eric Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 170.

[61]Each district had to raise a company of
regular, full-time troops for one year of service and a 10-company battalion of
minutemen within the militia system. See Robert Wright, The Continental Army (Wash. D.C.: Center of Military History, U.S.
Army, 1983), pp. 67-68; William Van Schreeven, et al. (ed.), Revolutionary Virginia: The Road to
Independence (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1973-1983),
vol. 3, pp. 319-504.

[63]Joseph Plumb Martin, Private Yankee Doodle:
Being a Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of a
Revolutionary Soldier (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1962), pp. 278-288.
Historian Reeve Huston in Land and Freedom: Rural Society, Popular Protest and
Party Politics in Antebellum New York (New York: Oxford University Press,
2000), p. 111, remarked, "The labor theory of value - the notion that
labor creates all wealth - had been commonplace in American economic thought
since the late eighteenth century." Tony Freyer made the same finding in Producers versus Capitalists:
Constitutional Conflict in Antebellum America (Charlottesville:
University Press of Va., 1994), p. 4.

[68]Selby, The Revolution in Virginia, pp. 144, 231; Thomas Abernethy, Western Lands and the American Revolution
(New York: D. Appleton-Century Co., 1937), pp. 218-219, 224-225.The Virginia
land office act was enacted on June 12, 1779. Squatters had priority for up to
400 acres over grants to absentee landlords. They got their land for a nominal
price. They were also given preemption rights for up to 1000 additional acres
at the regular price of £40 per 100 acres. See Abernethy, Western Lands,

[70]Landon Carter, The Diary of Landon Carter of Savine Hall, 1752-1778, (ed.) Jack
Greene (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1965), vol. II, pp.
1008-1010 (Apr. 1, 4, 1776). Landlord George Washington condemned Patrick Henry
who as Virginia's governor had to increase taxation on the rich to pay for the
military services of the rank-and-file, including re-enlistment bounties of $20
above that given by Congress. See George Washington in John Fitzpatrick (ed.), Writings of Washington from the Original
Manuscript Sources (39 vols., Wash., D.C.: G.P.O., 1931-1944), vol. 22, p.
283.

[72]Wright, The Continental Army , p. 70; Sweeney, Amherst County, Virginia in the Revolution (1951), p. 6. The
Virginia Convention on May 10, 1776 ordered that two battalions of 650 troops
be sent to the assistance of North Carolina. Amherst County's quota was one
company of 50 troops. The company was assigned to the Second Battalion under Colonel
Charles Lewis. Because of protests by the Amherst troops, the Convention later
in the month reversed the earlier order and the Amherst company did not go to
North Carolina.A few weeks after
the company returned home, it was called out on an "Indian Campaign."
It marched to Lynch's Ferry where it was discharged after 20 days service owing
to a "great indisposition of the company," that is, the troops
mutinied.

[73]Samuel Jordan Cabell, Virginia Gazette (Sept. 17, 1776).
Samuel Cabell was taken a prisoner at Charleston in May 1780. He later was a
lieutenant colonel from Feb. 12, 1781 to Jan. 1, 1783 in the 7th Va. Regiment.
See E. M. Sanchez-Saavedra, A Guide to
Virginia Military Organizations in the American Revolution, 1774-1778
(Richmond: Virginia State Library, 1778), p. 53.

[75]Ibid., p. 38. The 13th Va. Regiment was
raised on the west side of the Alleghenies with the promise that they would not
be drawn from that quarter. Because they were taken from the area, Washington
claimed, as quoted in ibid, p. 116,
that "it has been the cause of great desertions and a present source of
uneasiness."

[76]Neimeyer, America Goes to War, pp. 146-149. There were 3 mutinies in the
first campaign of the war (1775-1776), 2 in the campaign of 1777-1778, 4 in
1779, 3 in 1780 and the longest mutiny in 1781. Part of the 1781 mutiny took
place in what is now Sumter County, S.C. in April 1781. Camped on the High
Hills of the Santee, the Continental veterans, long suffering and long unpaid,
were afflicted by malaria, war-weariness, and poverty in money, equipment,
clothing, food and medicines. Theodore Thayer in Nathaniel Greene, p. 398, wrote:

It
was talked pretty freely among the men that if pay and clothing did not arrive
by such a day they would march their officers to Dorchester and allow them only
a few days more before they would deliver them up to the enemy unless their
grievances were not redressed.

[77]The Amherst militia was composed of 10
divisions. Each soldier was given a number. When their number was called, they
served a 3-month tour or furnished a substitute.

[78]Several James Joneses did military
service in Virginia. One of them was in the same 7th Regiment attached to
Morgan's Rifle Regiment as William Jones. See John H. Gwathmey, Historical Register of Virginians in the
Revolution: Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, 1775-1783 (Richmond, Va.: Dietz
Press, 1938), pp. 425. 427.

[80]According to a bible held by the
descendants of Wiley Jones, who was one of the William's sons, the
revolutionary was born in 1764. See Billy Jones, "Interview with Toby
Terrar," (manuscript, Oct. 30, 1999), in possession of author. A 1761
birth date is listed by Howard Jones in "Patron Sheets, 1969-1991,"
Film/Fiche No. 1553488, which he donated to the Latter Day Saints Family
History Center at Salt Lake City, Utah. See International Genealogical Index
(IGI) file (Batch No. 5007736).

[81]There are three accounts of William
Joneses' service in the 1854 pension application of his daughter, Betsie Jones.
In addition to Betsie's account, there is an affidavit of her Sumter neighbor,
the then 90-year-old, William Vaughn. He had served in the South Carolina
militia with Jones, but not in the Continentals. John R. Pollard (1787-1870)
gave another description of William's Continental service. Pollard's father,
also named John, had served with Jones in the Continental Army, or as John R.
put it, "U.S. Army." John R. had heard his father and Jones discuss
their part in the war many times. See "Revolutionary War Pension
Application concerning William Jones," p. 399.

[82]"Revolutionary War Pension File for
George Hardwick," No. S 8674, in Revolutionary
Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application Files, 1800-1900 (Wash. D.C.:
U.S. Archives), Microfilm M-804, who was born in Amherst County on Aug. 31,
1759 and enlisted in April 1777 for two years.

[83]John R. Sellers, "The Common Soldier
in the American Revolution," ed. Stanley Underdal, Proceedings of the 6th Military History Symposium, U.S. Air Force
Academy (Wash. D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1976), pp. 157-159.
Another survey by Sellers, of 658 Virginia soldiers found that half (325) moved
out of the state immediately after the war. Sellers concluded that this
indicated they did not have much to return to after their service.

[87]Long's was designated the 5th company in
Col. Daniel Morgan's Battalion of Rifle. The 2nd company was headed by Capt.
Samuel Jordan Cabell. See Sanchez-Saavedra, A
Guide to Virginia Military Organizations, p. 89.

[93]Wright, ibid., p. 13. The imperial strategy also involved a British army in
the South fighting its way northward to trap Washington in a pincers movement
between the southern troops and those operating out of New York. In November,
1778, the British captured Savannah. They then turned toward South Carolina and
the capture of Charleston.

[94]John Richard Alden, A History of the South, III: The South in the Revolution, 1763-1789
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1957), p. 227.

[96]Alden, A History of the South, p. 239; Lynn Montross, The Story of the Continental Army, 1775-1783 (New York: Barnes and
Noble, 1952), p. 359.

[97]Joseph Spears was born in 1759 in Craven
(later Sumter) County, S.C. He was living in Sumter District, Claremont County
in 1832 at the time he filed his "Revolutionary War Pension
Application," R 9965, Revolutionary
Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application Files, 1800-1900 (Wash. D.C.:
U.S. Archives), Microfilm M-804.

[98]Montross, The Story of the Continental Army, p. 334; Edward McCrady, The History of South Carolina in the
Revolution, 1775-1780 (New York: Russell & Russell, 1969 [1901]), p.
401.

[99]In the same expedition was Obediah
Spears. Vouching for Obediah Spears' service was the same William Vaughn who
served with William Jones. "Revolutionary War Pension Application
concerning Obediah Spears," No. S 7586 and No. 23,906, Revolutionary Files, 1800-1900.
Other battles in which Obediah took part were Fort Motte, Quinby and Watson.

[100]Robert Bass in The Swamp Fox: The Life and Campaigns of General Francis Marion
(New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1959), pp. 22-23, describes the 1779 Georgia
expedition and the rank-and-file militancy, including an attempted murder of an
officer who sought to assert rank:

On July 19, 1779 Col. Richard Richardson, who
commanded the militia east of the Santee, joined General Benjamin Lincoln. But
his undisciplined militiamen refused to obey their officers. On being chided by
his captain for being absent from a sentry post, a private answered roughly.
After having been arrested he tried to shoot the captain. When Lincoln
attempted to convene a court-martial to try the officer, many of the militia
officers refused to serve on the grounds that militiamen could be tried only
under the militia laws of South Carolina. In disgust Lincoln declared the
militia no longer under his command.

[101]Alan Taylor, William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the
Early American Republic (New York: Knopf, 1995), p. 49.

[104]William Gordon, History of the Rise, Progress and Establishment of Independence in the
United States (NY: Campbell, 1794), vol. 3, pp. 68-69; Wright, South Carolina, p. 137. Of the 5,500
surrendered troops, 2,000 were from Virginia. Many of them had been recruited
in May 1779. The captured militia was turned loose on parole. The Continental
"regulars," headed by Benjamin Lincoln, were retained as prisoners of
war, but many escaped, including William Jones.

[105]Anne Gregorie, History
of Sumter County, South Carolina (Sumter: Library Board of Sumter
County, 1954), p. 44.

[113]A Vagrant Act was enacted in the 1760s to
prohibit labor from squatting on upcountry river bottomland that had been
patented by low-country monopolists. See Klein, "Unification of a Slave
State," pp. 33-34, 42, 53, 57, 64; Thomas Cooper and David McCord (eds.), The Statutes at Large of South Carolina,
S.C. (Columbia: A.S. Johnson, 1836-1873), vol. 5, pp. 41-44; Richard Brown,
The South Carolina Regulators
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963), p. 144; Fred Anderson, The Crucible of War: The Seven Years'
War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766
(New York: Alfred Knopf, 2000), p. 598.

[118]After William Jones died in 1809, his
widow, children and, beginning in 1811, his widow's new husband, John Parker
(d. 1831), continued to farm at Providence. One of the Joneses' sons, Eli,
married in 1825. He farmed part of the original family land. In 1830 he bought
from his neighbor, Tyre Jennings, a parcel that bordered the original farm.
This was the first land record the Joneses registered. This "Deed of Tyre
Jennings to Eli Jones" (Dec. 7, 1830), Deed
Books (SCC), Book H, p. 439, contained a plat of the farm and stated:

Eli Jones late of Sumter
District paid $300 to Tyre Jennings for 100 acres, a part of land originally
granted to Asa Dinkins, on the headwaters of the Black River, bordered by Jesse
Heartwell, Capt. Thomas Baker, Dr. Haynsworth and Josiah Haynsworth.

[125]In 1802 a "William Jones" was
listed as being a presiding elder in the Santee Circuit. See James Burgess, Chronicles of St. Mark's Parish: Santee
Circuits and Williamsburg Township, 1731-1885 (Columbia, S.C.: C.A. Calvo,
1888), pp. 68, 105.

[126]Both the Methodist grounds and the
Joneses' 40-acre farm were on what is present-day Red Lane Rd. (State Highway
278). Red Lane Rd. is near the intersection of what is now old U.S. Highway 521
and State Highway 441. State Highway 441 (Peach Orchard Road) was the old route
leading northeast from Statesburg to U.S. Highway 15 and Bishopville.

[136]The British made military duty compulsory
for all South Carolina citizens in 1780. At the same time, they betrayed those
who fought on their side by not providing protection to them from the
plundering of the revolutionary militia. See Lyman Draper, Kings Mountain and Its Heroes (Cincinnati: Thomson, 1881), pp. 143;
McCrady, The History of the Revolution,
1775-1780, pp. 533-560.

[137]There was plundering, ravaging, and abuse
of civilians by Hessians and loyalists. The brutalities of Banastre Tarleton
(1754-1833), who refused quarter to revolutionaries in the field, especially
drove them in desperation to take sides and to bitter resistance. See Montross,
The Story of the Continental Army,
pp. 370-373.

[138]McCrady, The History of the Revolution, 1775-1780, p. 401. Betsie Jones, in
her 1854 pension application, included a copy of the payment receipts made to
her father for his militia service during the last part of the war. She
obtained the receipts from the South Carolina Comptroller General's office in
Columbia, S.C. They are also in Accounts
Audited of Claims Growing Out of the Revolution in South Carolina, SCDAH,
microcopy 8 (170 rolls, 9,000 files); and Stub
Entries to Indents Issued in Payment of Claims Against SC Growing out of the
Revolution, ed. A.S. Salley (12 vols., Columbia: 1910-1957).

[139]The indents were sold by the soldiers for
cash to speculators, since land was cheap. Some of the capitalists who got the
indentures, got stuck. Robert Morris of Pennsylvania, superintendent of finance
under the Article of Confederation, his associate, John Nicholson and their
North American Land Company accumulated one million acres in South Carolina
between 1782 and 1784. They declared bankruptcy and went to debtors' prison in
1797. They could not get squatters to pay rent or buy titles, nor could they
themselves pay the taxes on "their" land. See Klein,
"Unification of a Slave State," pp. 203, 207, 232.

[140]Below is a copy of the receipts
concerning Joneses' service, as contained in the "Revolutionary War
Pension Application concerning William Jones," pp. 425, 437.

[146]See "Revolutionary War Pension
Application concerning William Jones," pp. 421-422. The militia captains
were Malone, Joseph Hill and George McCally and the colonels were Peter Horry
and Richard Richardson. Marion was described by Charles Royster in Light-Horse Harry Lee and the Legacy of the
American Revolution (New York: Knopf, 1981), p. 59, as someone who
"thought much, spoke seldom, dressed plainly, ate little, drank water and
scorned wealth."

[152]Thane, The Fighting Quaker, p. 177. Greene led the Southern Dept. until
the end of the war in 1783. He was from a family of commercial Quakers, whose
revolutionary conviction stemmed from "the desire for dollars,"
according to biographer John Richard Alden in A History of the South, p. 251. Greene mingled his capitalist
ventures with his public business. For example, when he learned from George
Washington that the Continental Army would be around Albany, N.Y. in the winter
of 1778-1779, he secretly wrote his relatives to send a supply of liquor there
to sell to the soldiers. Similar activities went on in the South under his
command.

[162]John Pancake, This Destructive War: The British Campaign in the Carolinas, 1780-1782
(University, Ala.: Alabama: University of Alabama, 1985), p. 110.

[163]In October 1780, British General Charles
Cornwallis had ravaged the region to obtain provisions and it would be weeks
before supplies could be gathered and delivered to the army from other parts of
the state and from Virginia. Greene decided he would not only move but would
divide the army as well.

[164]Thane, The Fighting Quaker, pp. 187, 197. The Catawba River was called
this in North Carolina. When it reached Camden, S.C., it changed its name to
Wateree. Thirty miles south of Camden, it was joined by the Congaree, which was
composed of the Broad and the Saluda flowing from the west of Winnsboro. Below
McCord's Ferry the Wateree changed it names to the Santee.

[165]Alden, A History of the South, p. 259. Nor could the British stay where
they were in North Carolina, without supplies, without safe communications to
the southward, and without hope of early reinforcement.

[167]A number of black Methodists ended up in
Sierra Leone, including some of George Washington's capital. They waged a
successful struggle against the English corporation there, which wanted to
impose a capitalist system of land ownership. These "antinomians," as
historian James Walker called them, refused to have their farms surveyed, their
titles recorded or to pay quit rents. Their military experience in the
Revolution and alliances with the local Africans, made them the authority. See
James Walker, The Black Loyalists: The Search for a
Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1976), pp. 4, 195-196, 225, 229; Graham Hodges
(ed.), The Black Loyalist Directory:
African-American Exile after the American Revolution (New York:
Garland Pub., 1996), pp. xxxiv-xxxv.

[169]Alden, A History of the South, p. 267. Not least in helping to achieve the
American victory were the French imperialists. Their fleet at Yorktown went a
long way in making up for the failures of Congress and the states to support
the revolution which they led.

[171]Harold Hyman, American Singularity: The 1787 Northwest Ordinance, the 1862 Homestead
and Morrill Acts and the 1944 G.I. Bill (Athens: University of Georgia
Press, 1986). Reeve Huston's Land and
Freedom, p. 5, discusses the agrarian reform movement that was waged
between the Revolution and the Civil War:

[172]Keith Olson, The G.I. Bill, The Veterans and the Colleges (Lexington: University
Press of Kentucky, 1974), pp. 3, 5, 21. The movement for the G.I. Bill of
Rights or "Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944," started 18 months
prior to World War II in 1940 in the face of opposition to the draft. Eleanor
Roosevelt noted that for 20 years after World War I, the veterans demonstrated
and marched until their bonus was paid. The capitalists would "reap the
whirlwind" if they short-changed the working class for its World War II
service.